Van Tuyl & Fairbank Heavy Hardware

– Since 1865-

What a long, strange trip it’s been

Arriving before Petrolia’s oil rush started in the mid-1860s, John Henry Fairbank opened a store in 1865. He also became a founding father of the town and by 1900, J.H.Fairbank was the largest single oil producer in Canada. After partnering with Benjamin Van Tuyl in 1874, the store grew to be the largest hardware west of Toronto.

Today, it has one foot in the 1800s and another in the current millennium. Now owned by the fourth generation of the Fairbank family, it sells solar thermal panels for outbuildings and nails by the pound.We aim to please do-it-yourself customers, farmers, trades people and local oil producers . You’ll find we know our stuff!

We take pride in our stock of rare and unusual pipe, rod and steel bar, our many ropes and our transmission belting. We cut steel to order and thread pipe.

Our store is definitely different. Some support beams still have bark on them; the floors are cement, wood, gravel and dirt.